As fuel prices continue to rise, small businesses and global enterprises find themselves paying more for nearly every input and service needed to bring their products and services to market. Consumers have had to adjust because they must pay more at the grocery store, shopping malls, and to fill up their tanks. Moreover, as fuel prices continue to rise, the incentive to steal fuel becomes greater. In regions of the United States, for example, fuel theft has become a significant cost to station owners. Station owners are demanding solutions to gaps in security that exist in dispensers.
The dispenser security gaps are not due to negligence on behalf of manufacturers, but rather to key differences in customer requirements for dispenser design. When fuel prices were much less, say $1.00/gal, the incentive to steal fuel was not as strong as it is when prices are above $4.00/gal. Therefore, with customers having less incentive to steal, station owners did not place a high value on security.
With dispenser and site layouts today, an attendant may never know theft has begun or occurred. Even if the attendant is able to detect theft by observation, they may not know how long it has been since the theft took place or how many people got free fuel (and therefore, information about the theft may not be available). In some cases, surveillance video footage shows multiple people orchestrating fuel theft to fill multiple vehicles over an extended period of time. News media make the problem worse by increasing attention to the issue of fuel theft, and in some instances, clearly describing and illustrating what was done to steal fuel.
In addition to tampering with dispensers, fuel thieves drive over the underground tank covers with a van; remove the tank cover from inside the van, and pump fuel out of the underground tank and into a storage tank in their vehicle.
The present invention recognizes and addresses the foregoing considerations, and others, of prior art constructions and methods.